In recent years theories about translation have proliferated. Yet surprisingly little has been written about what it actually feels like to be a translator: to spend one's days devoted to the words of another. Bernard Turle's Diplomat, Actor, Translator, Spy seeks to address certain prevailing translation theories, but above all to give a sense of the true task of the translator -- a daily grind that is anything but abstract. Through twenty-six alphabetically organized recollections, anecdotes, fantasies, and dreams, he vividly conveys what it is that drew him to becoming a translator, evoking the delights as well as the frustrations of his chosen profession.

Gender and Personal PronounsHindiImitationJugglingKaleidoscopeLine of BeautyMetaphorNonsenseOrient and OccidentPhysical, All Too PhysicalQuiberonRepetition RefugeSavant or NotTimeUne Chaise, a ChairVoiceWhere, When, Why?XY (Generation)Z for Zorro

Afterword on the translation and images Dann GunnColophon

Review Quotes

Margaret Jull Costa | Times Literary Supplement

“Turle is particularly good on the physicality of being a translator, the terrible slowness of the process as compared with reading, one’s longing to be unchained from one’s computer and the equal desire to keep working.”

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